Films › Paul Verhoeven

Total Recall (1990)

Film

DirectorPaul Verhoeven

Meta takes3

Figures

Locations

Dr. Edgemar's offer to Quaid in the hotel room

Form & technique

The narrative expansion from Philip K. Dick's short story

Tropes

Douglas Quaid's physical body and its vulnerability
The Rekall Inc. memory implant procedure and the film's ambiguous ending → The Hyperreal Mirage
The Rekall Inc. corporation and its business model → The Commodity Fetish
The exaggerated and hyper-violent bodily destruction → The Carnivalesque
The fascist aesthetics of corporate and military iconography
The Martian mutants, particularly Kuato, in the marginalized zones of Mars

Films most connected to Total Recall

Clerks (1994) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Hyperreal Mirage, The Carnivalesque
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) — via The Hyperreal Mirage, The Carnivalesque
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) — via The Hyperreal Mirage, The Carnivalesque
Home Alone (1990) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Carnivalesque
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Carnivalesque
Barbie (2023) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Hyperreal Mirage
Fight Club (1999) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Hyperreal Mirage
Edward Scissorhands (1990) — via The Commodity Fetish, The Hyperreal Mirage